RonBlog

Sunday 16th October, 2011 Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Sentence
Give to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s. Matthew 22:21

Collect
Almighty and everlasting God, in Christ You have revealed Your glory among the nations; grant that Your Church throughout the world may persevere with steadfast faith in proclaiming the cross to be the way that leads to life eternal; through Jesus Christ our Lord, Who lives and reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God now and for ever. Amen

Old Testament Lesson Exodus 33: 12 – 23

Moses said to the LORD, "See, you have said to me, 'Bring up this people'; but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. Yet you have said, 'I know you by name, and you have also found favour in my sight.' Now if I have found favour in your sight, show me your ways, so that I may know you and find favour in your sight. Consider too that this nation is your people." The LORD said, "My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest." And Moses said to Him, "If your presence will not go, do not carry us up from here. For how shall it be known that I have found favour in your sight, I and your people, unless you go with us? In this way, we shall be distinct, I and your people, from every people on the face of the earth."
The LORD said to Moses, "I will do the very thing that you have asked; for you have found favour in my sight, and I know you by name." Moses said, "Show me your glory, I pray." And the Lord said, "I will make all my goodness pass before you, and will proclaim before you the name, 'The LORD'; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. But," he said, "You cannot see my face; for no one shall see me and live." And the LORD continued, "See, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock; and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by; then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back; but my face shall not be seen."

Psalm 99

The Lord is King, le the nations tremble: He is enthroned upon the cherubim; let the earth quake
The Lord is great in Zion: He is high above all nations
Let them praise Your great and terrible Name: for holy is the Lord
The Mighty One is King, and loves justice: You have established equity, You have dealt righteousness and justice in Jacob.
O exalt the Lord our God: and bow down before His footstool for He is holy
Moses and Aaron among His priests, and Samuel among those who call upon His name: they called to the Lord and He answered.
He spoke to them from the pillar of cloud: they kept His teaching and the law that He gave them
You answered them, O Lord our God: You were a forgiving God to them, and pardoned their wrongdoing.
O exalt the Lord our God: and bow down towards His holy hill, for the Lord our God is holy.

Epistle 1 Thessalonians 1: 1 -10

Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, to the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace.
We always give thanks to God for all of you and mention you in our prayers, constantly remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labour of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.
For we know, brothers and sisters beloved by God, that he has chosen you, because our message of the gospel came to you not in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction; just as you know what kind of persons we proved to be among you for your sake. And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for in spite of persecution you received the word with joy inspired by the Holy Spirit, so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia. For the word of the Lord has sounded forth from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but in every place your faith in God has become known, so that we have no need to speak about it. For the people of those regions report about us what kind of welcome we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols, to serve a living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead--Jesus, who rescues us from the wrath that is coming.


GOSPEL Matthew 22: 15 – 33

Then the Pharisees went and plotted to entrap Jesus in what he said. So they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, "Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and teach the way of God in accordance with truth, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality. Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?"
But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, "Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites? Show me the coin used for the tax." And they brought him a denarius. Then he said to them, "Whose head is this, and whose title?" They answered, "The emperor's." Then he said to them, "Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor's, and to God the things that are God's." When they heard this, they were amazed; and they left him and went away.
The same day some Sadducees came to him, saying there is no resurrection; and they asked him a question, saying, "Teacher, Moses said, 'If a man dies childless, his brother shall marry the widow, and raise up children for his brother.' Now there were seven brothers among us; the first married, and died childless, leaving the widow to his brother. The second did the same, so also the third, down to the seventh. Last of all, the woman herself died.
In the resurrection, then, whose wife of the seven will she be? For all of them had married her." Jesus answered them, "You are wrong, because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God, 'I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'? He is God not of the dead, but of the living." And when the crowd heard it, they were astounded at his teaching.

© New Revised Standard Version of the Bible Copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the
National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA, and used by permission. All rights reserved

NOTES ON THE READINGS

Old Testament
If you are more than a little bemused by that OT reading, do not be surprised. On the other hand, if you take a long hard look, maybe the ‘bells will begin to ring.’ One thing is reasonably clear in the passage – that JHWH is not going to let anyone – including Moses – dominate or dictate the agenda.
Had you lived in that day and age, most of the religions by which you were surrounded actually operated on the premise that the worshipper could manipulate the gods by performing the required ritual acts. In other words, that sort of worship was a matter of following certain patterns or rituals, the outcome of which was – so the story went! – that the gods were bound to respond accordingly. Compare that with what you already know of JHWH, and in particular with this passage. For all Moses’ push and shove, he was kept very much in his place. If that seems a little strange, then please ponder a moment or two.
You will be quite familiar with the Hebrew perception (and your own) of God being holy; this was epitomized by the clear understanding that if anyone saw JHWH, then death was the immediate prospect. Put into more conventional language it meant that He was not there to be trifled with. No one could (or can) manipulate God even when the NT offers us the chance to call Him ‘Daddy,’ Abba, Father. One had and has to take Him seriously or not at all.
With all due respect, this is an aspect of reality that modern Christians need to recover. God is for real, and justice is for real, and integrity is for real. We can try and manipulate those things, but – try it if you dare - it will all explode in your face. Do you catch sight now of what is being conveyed and underlined?

Psalm
And now, of course, you can catch clear sight of what the Psalmist is presenting. Here is no propaganda about God; when you realize that all that is true and solid and lasting – as we have seen above – stems from and is represented by God, it gives quite some certainty and promise for the future regardless of how bleak that future might look. Hate might confront you, but love will defeat it in the final analysis.

Epistle
I wonder if many people reading this Epistle recognize the nature of the change for those people that the Gospel represented. For most people, even Romans citizens, life would have been somewhat of an enormous risk, for few of the Jewish values of honesty and dependability, justice and truth, would have been available, or recognized, and certainly not valued..Never lose sight of the fact that such things are and remain products of the Gospel, - and of Judaism before that – for the entire Biblical Faith is, may I remind you, something that proffers a healing response to what many still call the ‘human dilemma.’


GOSPEL
These two cameos underline something that modern Christians could well stop and ponder. For too many such folk, enormous effort is expended trying to defend the faith, when so much of the attacks from people who either know little about the Faith or indicate such confused thinking that their illogic is really very sad. Jesus had little compunction about taking on antagonists, and I suspect had a certain amount of delight in pulling rugs out from under certain feet, so to speak.
That business about the coin is really rather telling, and actually widens the perception of anyone reading of the encounter. Here is no simple business of dividing sacred from secular but a far wider, all-embracing look and understanding of life.
For Jews, the presence of the Romans and their occupation of the country represented the sort of angst and anger that either Japanese or American occupation would produce in you! (Does that say anything to you about Afghanistan?) On the other hand, the Apostles could write in their epistles of respecting the ‘powers that be.’ For people of that age, even the detested Romans represented protection from any chaos that would result from collapse of any existing sort of rule. Maybe Rome was a lesser of two evils, but certainly lesser. In other words, if you are part of the community, country or culture, it is incumbent on you to pay your share of the cost of that.

On the other hand, the debate with the Sadducees was really remarkably pathetic. It bodes no one any good to try and draw an argument from hypothetic illustrations. That does not stop people from doing so, but it does underline the folly of it. Whilst there was always that aspect of early Jewish law that a brother was expected to take up the cause of any brother’s widow, - and people did so willingly and effectively – the casse as posited was ridiculous. Notice just how Jesus responded to it/

NOTES FOR A SERMON

Have I told you the story of the son of a colleague of mine who, many years ago now, was living off the fat of the land (well, not quite!) as his unemployment benefits managed to cope with his then rather minimal needs. While he would have preferred to receive more, his theory was that the country and culture to which he (sort of) belonged, was effete and passing away, and to it he offered neither allegiance nor support. It was around the time of the Vietnam War, which also got right under his skin, as it did for most of the rest of us.
So he expressed his total disgust at the status quo, and tore strips off his parents and the rest of us for being part of the ‘establishment.’ I questioned him about his inconsistency, as you might imagine. I have rarely been able to keep my trap shut when people propose baloney. – but you will not have noticed that, will you?
The young man reiterated his disgust at society and government – so I suggested that he should alter his way of operating. ‘How can you continue to accept your dole payments,’ I asked. ‘You are a parasite on the society you claim to despise. I have no problem with your point of view of Australia, but you are totally dishonest in living off the very society you despise. Either refuse the dole, and survive on your own, or change your attitude entirely.’
As you might imagine, the young man was livid! He exploded at me (as I hoped he would,) and tore strips of his parents, who were open-mouthed at me, not their son. But after he had a chance to think about it all, he had to see his own dishonesty. I am glad to report that, while it took a little while to occur, his direction in life changed dramatically, and he became a rather more useful member of the society he found he could not despise, in spite of its shortcomings.
If you consider this to be at a vast distance from those readings for today, I ask you to think again. If you consider this to have nothing to do with the holiness of God, I repeat the same request. Can you now see the clear and distinct link between that which is holy – truth, justice, equity, compassion and love, all of them characteristics of the Father, unchangeable and enormously valuable – and all that is other? ‘Between them is a great gulf fixed,’ you may recall from Jesus’ Parable of the rich man and Dives.
Go a step further: one of the common complaints of the people of God over the last few decades has been ‘where will it all end, Ron?’ as if the increase of ‘that other’ is somehow proof that God either no longer exists or is no longer capable of dealing with it all. Repeatedly I have pointed out that the reality is clear yet unexpected by many. The rise of evil in this world of ours is a constant experience of humans of almost whatever space and time, that the ‘faith once delivered’ has always and still does present an antidote, the antidote, so that whatever you seem to fear is actually proof of the relevance and purpose of the Gospel. Ponder that a while if you will. Like Abraham, you may not see the final denouement, but it will be there, sometime, someplace. As John expresses it in Revelation, though not in these words, evil has within itself the source and cause of its own destruction. The rescue is brought to fruition, not by force but by love. That is the scary bit.